I.

a licence, to control so magistrally, and to censure of gross DISCOURSE "ignorance" and "tyrannising over men's judgments," yea, as causes of the troubles and tumults which are in the world, the "doctors of the Church" in general, who have flourished in all ages and in all places, only for a few necessary and innocent distinctions. Truly said Plutarch, that a sore eye is offended with the light of the sun". What then? Must the logicians lay aside their "first and second intentions," their "abstracts" and "concretes," their "subjects" and "predicates," their "modes" and "figures," their "method synthetic" and "analytic," their "fallacies of composition and division," &c.? Must the moral philosopher quit his "means" and "extremes," his "principia congenita" and "acquisita," his "liberty of contradiction" and "contrariety," his "necessity absolute" and "hypothetical," &c.? Must the natural philosopher give over his "intentional species," his "understanding agent" and "patient," his "receptive and eductive power of the matter," his "qualities," "infinita" or "influxæ," "symbola" or "dissymbole," his "temperament ad pondus" and "ad justitiam," his parts "homogeneous" and "heterogeneous," his "sympathies" and "antipathies," his antiperistasis," &c.? Must the astrologer and the geographer leave their "apogeum" and "perigæum," their "arctic" and "antarctic poles," their "equator, zodiac, zenith, meridian, horizon, zones," &c.? Must the mathematician, the metaphysician, and the divine, relinquish all their terms of art, and proper idiotisms, because they do not relish with T. H. his palate? But he will say, they are "obscure" expressions. What marvel is it, when the things themselves are more obscure? Let him put them into as "plain English" as he can, and they shall be never a whit the better understood by those who want all grounds of learning. Nothing is clearer than mathematical demonstration; yet 699 let one who is altogether ignorant in mathematics hear it, and he will hold it to be, as T. H. terms these distinctions, plain fustian or "jargon"." Every art or profession hath its proper mysteries and expressions, which are well known to the sons

66

"[See the De Adulat. et Amici Discrim., c. 28; Op. Moral., tom. i. p. 181. ed. Wyttenb.]

BRAMHALL.

K

[See below T. H. Numb. xxiv. in
fin., p. 155.]
[See above, T. H. Numb. iv. p. 34.]

PART
III.

of art, not so to strangers. Let him consult with military men, with physicians, with navigators, and he shall find this true by experience; let him go on shipboard, and the mariners will not leave their "starboard" and "larboard," because they please not him, or because he accounts it gibberish. No, no; it is not the School divines, but innovators and seditious orators, who are the true causes of the present troubles of Europe. T. H. hath forgotten what he said in his book De Cive cap. xii,—that it is "a seditious opinion," to teach, that "the knowledge of good and evil belongs to private personsz;"-and cap. 17,-that in "questions of faith" the civil magistrates ought to consult with "the ecclesiastical doctors," to whom "God's blessing is derived by imposition of hands," so as "not to be deceived in necessary truths," to whom "our Saviour hath promised infallibility." These are the very men whom he traduceth here. There he ascribes "infallibility" to them; here he accuseth them of gross superstitious ignorance. There he attributes too much to them; here he attributes too little. Both there and here he [Numb.xvi. "takes too much upon" him. "The spirits of the prophets 3, 7.] I Cor. xiv. are subject to the prophets."

32.

opposed to

NUMBER XX.

[Election J. D.-Now, to the distinction itself, I say first, that the coarctation proper act of liberty is election, and election is opposed (not as well as to only to coaction but also) to coarctation or determination to coaction.]

[Elicit

will cannot

be neces

sitated.]

one. Necessitation or determination to one may consist with spontaneity, but not with election or liberty; as hath been shewed. The very Stoics did acknowledge a spontaneity. So our adversaries are not yet gone out of the confines of the Stoics.

Secondly, to rip up the bottom of this business. This I acts of the take to be the clear resolution of the Schools.-There is a double act of the will: the one more remote, called "imperatus," that is, in truth, the act of some inferior faculty, subject to the command of the will; as to open or shut one's eyes. Without doubt these actions may be compelled. The other act is nearer, called "actus elicitus," an "act drawn out"

[De Cive, c. xii. § 1. title, p. 125. ed. 1642.]

a

[Ibid., c. xvii. § 28. p. 256.]

I.

of the will; as to will, to choose, to elect. This may be DISCOURSE stopped or hindered by the intervening impediment of the understanding, as a stone lying on a table is kept from its natural motion; otherwise the will should have a kind of omnipotence: but the will cannot be compelled to an act repugnant to its inclination, as when a stone is thrown upwards into the air; for that is both to incline and not to incline to the same object at the same time, which implies a contradiction. Therefore, to say the will is necessitated, is to say the will is compelled so far as the will is capable of compulsion. If a strong man, holding the hand of a weaker, should therewith kill a third person, "hæc quidem vis est”"this is violence;" the weaker did not willingly perpetrate the fact, because he was compelled. But now suppose this strong man had the will of the weaker in his power as well as the hand, and should not only incline but determine it secretly and insensibly to commit this act, is not the case the same? Whether one ravish Lucretia by force, as Tarquin, or by amatory potions and magical incantations not only allure her but necessitate her to satisfy his lust, and incline her effectually and draw her inevitably and irresistibly to follow him spontaneously; Lucretia, in both these conditions, is to be pitied, but the latter person is more guilty and deserves greater punishment, who endeavours also so much as in him lies to make Lucretia irresistibly partake of his crime. I dare not apply it, but thus only;-take heed, how we defend those secret and invincible necessitations to evil, though spontaneous and free from coaction.

III.

PART election is opposite to either. For when a man is compelled (for example, to subject himself to an enemy or to die), he hath still election left in him, and a deliberation to bethink which of these two he can better endure. And he that is led to prison by force, hath election, and may deliberate whether he will be haled and trained on the ground, or make use of his feet. Likewise, when there is no compulsion, but the 700 strength of temptation to do an evil action, being greater than the motives to abstain, necessarily determine him to the doing of it, yet he deliberates; whilst sometimes the motives to do, sometimes the motives to forbear, are working on him; and, consequently, he electeth which he will. But commonly, when we see and know the strength that moves us, we acknowledge necessity; but when we see not or mark not the force that moves us, we then think there is none; and that it is not causes but liberty that produceth the action. Hence it is, that they think he does not choose this, that of necessity chooseth it; but they might as well say, fire does not burn, because it burns of necessity.

[The distinction vain, between im

perate and

elicit acts of the will.]

The second argument is not so much an argument, as a distinction; to shew in what sense it may be said, that voluntary actions are necessitated, and in what sense not. And therefore he allegeth, as from the authority of "the Schools" and that which "rippeth up the bottom" of the question, that "there is a double act of the will." The one, he says, "is ' actus imperatus,' an act done at the command of the will by some inferior faculty of the soul, as to open or shut one's eyes; and this act may be compelled." The other, he says, "is actus elicitus,' an act allured, or an act 'drawn forth' by allurement, out of the will, as to will, to choose, to elect; this," he says, "cannot be compelled." Wherein,-letting pass that metaphorical speech, of attributing command and subjection to the faculties of the soul, as if they made a commonwealth or family among themselves, and could speak one to another, which is very improper in searching the truth of the question,―you may observe, first, that to compel a voluntary act is nothing else but to will it; for it is all one to say, my will commands the shutting of mine eyes or the doing of any other action, and to say, I have the will to shut mine eyes. So that "actus imperatus" here, might as easily have been

I.

said in English, a voluntary action; but that they that DISCOURSE invented the term, understood not anything it signified. Secondly, you may observe, that "actus elicitus" is exemplified by these words, "to will, to elect, to choose," which are all one; and so to will is here made an act of the will. And indeed, as the will is a faculty or power in a man's soul, so to will is an act of it according to that power. But as it is absurdly said, that to dance is an act allured or "drawn" by fair means out of the ability to dance; so it is also to say, that to will is an act allured or "drawn out" of the power to will, which power is commonly called the will. Howsoever it be, the sum of his distinction is, that a voluntary act may be done on compulsion, that is to say, by foul means, but to will that, or any act, cannot be but by allurement or fair means. Now, seeing fair means, allurements, and enticements, produce the action which they do produce, as necessarily as threatening and foul means, it follows, that to will may be made as necessary as anything that is done by compulsion. So that the distinction of "actus imperatus," and "actus elicitus" are but words, and of no effect against necessity.

sion and

tion both

J. D.—In the next place follow two reasons of mine own [Reply.] against the same distinction; the one taken from the former grounds, that election cannot consist with determination to one. To this (he saith) he hath "answered already." No, truth is founded upon a rock; he hath been so far from prevailing against it, that he hath not been able to shake it. Now again he tells us, that "election is not opposite to [Compuleither" (necessitation or compulsion). He might even as necessitawell tell us, that a stone thrown upwards moves naturally; opposite to or that a woman can be ravished with her own will. Consent liberty.] takes away the rape. This is the strangest liberty that ever was heard of;—that a man is compelled to do what he would not, and yet is free to do what he will. And this he tells us upon the old score, that he "who submits to his enemy for fear of death, chooseth to submit." But we have seen formerly, that this, which he calls compulsion, is not compulsion properly, nor that natural determination of the will to one, which is opposite to true liberty. He who submits to [Above T. H. Numb. xix. pp. 121, &c.]

c